Coalescence
There was an inherent intricacy in the series of glass forms, circling and rotating among one and other as if in an orbit of sorts. Shafts of light danced in spectrum that the boy was barely capable of perceiving, churning and bending around the massive structure, there alone in the blackness. There was a dense darkness that hadn't any sort of end or lightening, only an infinite depth and shadow that seemed to swallow sensation altogether. He felt himself falling into it, into the shimmering transparency of the dancing gears and cogs, ghostly bending inward in clockwork, almost terrifyingly precise, almost terrifyingly perfect. The motion seemed right, ancient, automatic – in a distant corner of his mind, somewhere in between the confusion and euphoria, he heard a distant voice murmur in a chorus of thousands of beings from within the structure itself.
"Machine."
Harmoniously and joyously the voice or voices repeated the mysterious word again and again. His mind felt as if it were melting through his pores, as if his ego was being pulled out of his eyes. His flesh burned and twitched in an anxiety and static that had never before felt. Passing moments brought his consciousness separated from his body, moving and sliding along the glass machine, swirling and contorting in an ethereal trance. There were no sounds, and in that silence he could sense his blood boiling and flashing through his body, his very humanity breaking and falling apart into the quiet. He felt the term, Death, flash in his mind's eye, but there, dissolving into the machine, he knew this was simply not the case. Whatever was happening to his body, was certainly not happening to his mind – where his mind was going he simply couldn't imagine, except deeper into the darkness.
"God."
There were whispers there, in that mental space, inside his consciousness – or rather, his unconscious self. His form was being twisted and pressed among the glass, skewed and contorted into a metaphysical state that he certainly couldn't currently grasp. His mind seemed all that was left whole, and there, among the chorus of voices singing in celestial tongues, he felt it coalescing, gaining some sort of new form, his body coming back together in another fashion. He hadn't the slightest clue what would become of him or what was left of him, but a part of him felt solace, a strange calm as he returned to whatever reality he was being sent to, away from whatever reality he was pulled from. Suddenly realizing he hadn't any memories of his past, he briefly felt an immense wave of sorrow, of perplexity and quiet sadness. His eyes, or perhaps his "Mind's eye," saw stars, constellations in the ether among the machine. Fixed on them, he quietly thought to himself returning, becoming whole once more, becoming a person again, away from this astral plane and its peace.
His thoughts becoming hazy, he saw an enormous hydra within the machine's gears, a beast with millions of heads, all thinking and acting in unison. It was an amazing gold, and there, shimmering beyond the glass, he realized it was the one speaking to him. Despite its frightening form he felt weirdly at peace seeing it, dancing inside the kaleidoscopic colors, ascended and omniscient. It was the last he saw as he finally drifted off, becoming someone once more.
